On the Priesthood 6 part 2/2

That a far harsher punishment awaits the sins of priests than those of laymen. For this very reason indeed, in rebuking the Israelites more severely, He shows by this that they are worthy of greater punishment, in that they sinned after the honors He had bestowed upon them, saying at one time:

"Only you have I known out of all the tribes

of the earth; therefore will I visit upon you your iniquities." And at another time:

"I took of your sons for prophets and of your young men for consecration." And before the prophets, wishing to show that sins incur far greater punishment when they are committed by priests than when by laymen, He commands that as great a sacrifice be offered for the priests as for the whole people;

and this signifies nothing other than that the priest's wounds need greater aid—as great as the wounds of the whole people together.

But it would not need greater aid unless they were more grievous;

and they become more grievous not by their nature, but by being weighted with the dignity of the priest who dares to commit them.

And why do I speak of the men who undertake the ministry? For even the daughters of the priests, who have no claim to the priesthood, nevertheless, on account of their father's dignity, undergo a far bitterer punishment for the same sins;

and the offense is equal for them and for the daughters of laymen—for in both cases it is fornication—but the penalty is far harsher than these.

Do you see with how great an emphasis God shows you that He requires of the ruler far greater punishment than of the governed?

For surely He who punishes his daughter more than others for his sake will not exact an equal penalty from the one who was also the cause of the addition to her torments as from the many, but a far greater one;

for the loss does not fall back upon him alone, but also casts down the souls of the weaker who look to him.

This too Ezekiel, wishing to teach, distinguishes from one another the judgment of the rams and that of the sheep.

A demonstration from examples, both of the anguish that arose because of the expectation of the priesthood, and of the fear. Do we seem to you to have feared with a reasonable fear? For besides what has been said, now indeed, even though I need much labor in order not to be utterly overcome by the passions of the soul, yet still I endure the labor and do not flee the contest.

For I am indeed caught by vainglory even now, but I often come to myself and perceive that I have been caught;

and there are times when I even rebuke my enslaved soul.

Improper desires fall upon me even now;

but they kindle the flame more sluggishly, since the eyes do not lay hold from outside upon the fuel of the fire.

And from speaking ill of this or that person, and from hearing oneself spoken ill of, I am wholly delivered, since those who converse are not present;

for surely these walls could not give forth a voice.

But anger one cannot likewise escape, even though there are none to provoke;

for often the memory of absurd men and of the things done by them, falling upon me, makes my heart swell—yet not to the end;

for we quickly check it while it is inflamed and persuade it to be still, saying that it is utterly out of harmony and the mark of the utmost wretchedness to leave one's own evils and busy oneself with those of one's neighbors.

But once I have gone out into the multitude and been caught up in countless turmoils, I shall not be able to enjoy this admonition, nor to find the reasonings that train these passions;

but just as those thrust down precipices by some torrent or otherwise can foresee the destruction in which they will end, yet have no means of devising any aid, so too I myself, having fallen into the great tumult of the passions, shall be able to perceive the punishment increasing for me with each day, but to come to myself as now, and to rebuke on every side these maladies raging within me, will no longer be as easy for me as before.

For my soul is a weak and small one, easily mastered not only by these passions, but also by envy, the bitterest of all; and it knows how to bear neither insults nor honors with moderation, but with excess the latter exalt it and

Just as savage beasts, when they are in good bodily condition and full of vigor, overcome those who fight against them—and especially when these are weak and inexperienced—but if someone should waste them away with hunger, he both lulls their fury and quenches the greater part of their strength, so that even the not very noble man may take up the contest and war against them; so too the passions of the soul: he who makes them weak places them under right reasonings, but he who carefully nourishes them sets up for himself a harder battle against them, and so renders them fearful to him as to live the whole of his time in slavery and cowardice.

What, then, is the food of these beasts? Of vainglory, honors and praises; of madness, the greatness of authority and power; of envy, the good repute of one's neighbors; of avarice, the lavish gifts of donors; of dissipation, luxury and the continual encounters with women; and one feeds upon another.

And all these things, if I go out into the midst, will vehemently set upon me and tear my soul, and will be fearful and will make my war against them harder.

But while I sit here, even so it will indeed be subdued, though with much force—yet subdued it will be nonetheless, by the grace of God—and their barking will avail them nothing.

For these reasons I keep this little dwelling, and I endure to hear myself called inaccessible and unsociable and unfriendly, and countless other such reproaches, though I would gladly shake them off, yet am bitten and pained by being unable to do so;

for it is not easy for me at once to become sociable and to remain in my present security.

Wherefore I also entreat you yourself to pity rather than to accuse one who is hemmed in by so great a difficulty.

It is high time, then, to cast forth to you also this one thing which alone I held as a secret.

And perhaps it will seem incredible to many;

but I, even so, will not be ashamed to bring it forth into the open.

For even if what is said be a proof of a wicked conscience and of countless sins, since God who is to judge us knows all things accurately, what more can accrue to us from the ignorance of men?

What, then, is the secret? From that day on which you put this suspicion into me, my body has often been in danger of being utterly paralyzed, so great a fear, and so great a despondency, seized my soul.

For considering the glory of Christ's bride—her holiness, her spiritual beauty, her understanding, her seemliness—and reckoning up my own evils, I did not cease to mourn for her and to bewail myself, and groaning continually and in perplexity I said to myself:

Who indeed counseled these things? What so great sin did the Church of God commit? What such great thing provoked her Master, that she should be handed over to me, the most worthless of all, and endure so great a disgrace? Reckoning these things often with myself, and unable to bear even the thought of so great an absurdity, I lay speechless like those struck dumb, able neither to see nor to hear anything.

And when this great helplessness released me—for there are times when it would relent—tears and despondency succeeded it; and after my fill of tears, fear again came in upon me, troubling and confounding and shaking my mind.

In such a tempest I lived through the time that is past;

but you knew it not, and supposed me to be passing my days in calm.

But now I shall try to reveal to you the storm of my soul;

for perhaps from this too you will pardon me, letting go your charges.

How, then, how shall we lay it open to you? If you should wish to see it clearly, there was no other way than to lay bare my heart.

But since this is impossible, by means of some faint image, as far as I am able, I will try to show you for the present the smoke of my despondency;

and do you gather from the image the despondency alone.

Let us suppose that someone is betrothed to the daughter of the king who reigns over all the land that lies beneath the sun, and that this maiden has beauty

indescribable and surpassing human nature, and by far surpasses the whole race of women by a great interval, and a virtue of soul so great that she leaves the race of men—both those who have been and those who shall ever be—far behind by a great measure, and surpasses all the bounds of philosophy by the seemliness of her character, and hides every bloom of body by the beauty of her own countenance;

and that her bridegroom is inflamed with love for the maiden not only on account of these things, but even apart from them feels something toward her, and by this passion eclipses the most frenzied of all the lovers that have ever been.

Then suppose that, in the midst of his being inflamed with love, he hears from somewhere that that wondrous beloved of his is about to be led in marriage to one of the worthless and outcast men—one of base birth, maimed in body, and the most wretched of all that exist.

Have we now set before you some small part of our anguish? And is it enough to halt the image at this point? As far as concerns the despondency, I think it is enough;

for it was on this account alone that we adopted it.

But in order that I may show you also the measure of the fear and the consternation, let us go on again to another sketch.

And let there be an army assembled of foot soldiers and horsemen and men who fight at sea; and let the number of triremes cover the sea, and let the phalanxes of foot and horse cover the throngs of the plains and the summits of the mountains; and let the bronze of the weapons gleam against the sun, and let the flashing of helmets and shields be cast back against the rays sent from there;

and let the clash of spears and the neighing of horses be borne up to heaven itself, and let neither sea nor land appear, but bronze and iron everywhere.

And let enemies too be drawn up against them, certain savage and untamed men;

and let the moment of engagement now be at hand.

Then let someone suddenly snatch up a lad of those reared in the country, who knows nothing more than the shepherd's pipe and the crook, and arm him with bronze armor;

and let him lead him round the whole army and show him the companies and the captains, the archers, the slingers, the company-commanders, the generals, the heavy-armed, the horsemen, the javelin-throwers, the triremes, the trireme-captains, the soldiers drawn up in array there, and the multitude of engines stowed away in the ships;

and let him show also the whole battle-array of the enemy, and certain forbidding faces and a strange array of weapons, and a countless multitude, and ravines and deep precipices and the difficult passes of the mountains;

and let him show besides, among the adversaries, horses flying by some sorcery and heavy-armed men borne through the air, and the power and appearance of every kind of magic.

And let him recount also the calamities of war: the cloud of darts, the snowstorm of arrows, that thick gloom and the blindness, the murkiest night that the multitude of missiles makes, turning back the sun's rays by their density, the dust that darkens the eyes no less than the gloom, the torrents of blood, the wailings of the falling, the war-cries of those still standing, the heaps of the slain, wheels dyed in blood, horses borne headlong together with their riders over the multitude of fallen corpses, the earth holding all things in confusion—blood and bows and darts, horses' hooves and men's heads lying together, and arms and a neck and a greave and a breast cut through, brains stuck to swords, an arrow-point snapped off and holding a pierced eye upon it.

Let him recount also the sufferings of the navy: triremes, some set ablaze in the midst of the waters, others sinking with their very crews; the roar of the waters, the tumult of the sailors, the shouting of the soldiers; the foam of the waves mingled with blood, pouring in over all together with the ships; the dead upon the

decks, those being sunk, those floating, those cast up onto the shores, those within being washed over by the waves and blocking the way with the wrecked ships.

And having accurately taught him all the tragedies of war, let him add also the terrors of captivity and slavery, which is harsher than any death.

And having said these things, let him bid him at once mount his horse and command that whole army.

Do you think that lad would suffice even for the description alone, and not rather, at the very first sight, immediately give up the ghost? (13)

That the temptation of the devil is harsher than any war. And do not suppose that I am magnifying the matter by my words;

nor, because we, shut up in this body as in some prison, can see nothing of things invisible, think that what has been said is exaggerated.

For you would have seen a battle far greater and more terrifying than this one, if ever you had been able to behold with these eyes the murkiest array of the devil and his frenzied onset;

for there it is not bronze and iron, nor horses and chariots and wheels, nor fire and arrows—these visible things—but other contrivances far more fearful than these.

These enemies need no breastplate, nor shield, nor swords and spears; rather, the mere sight of that accursed host suffices to paralyze a soul, unless it happen to be very noble and, before its own courage, enjoy much of the providence that comes from God.

And if indeed it were possible to put off this body, or even with the body itself to be able purely and fearlessly to behold with one's eyes that whole array and its war against us, you would see not torrents of blood, nor dead bodies, but such great falls of souls and wounds so grievous that you would reckon that whole sketch of war which I just now went through with you to be some children's plaything, and rather child's play than war—so many are smitten every day.

And the wounds do not work an equal deadening, but as great as the difference between soul and body, so great is the difference between those wounds and these;

for when the soul receives the blow and falls, it does not lie insensible like the body, but is even now tortured here, consumed by an evil conscience; and after its departure hence, at the time of judgment, it is handed over to undying punishment.

And if anyone should be insensible to the devil's blows, the danger becomes the greater for him through that very insensibility;

for he who was not stung by the first blow easily receives a second, and after that another.

For the foul one does not cease striking until the last breath, whenever he finds a soul supine and despising the former blows.

And if you should wish to examine also the manner of the engagement, you would see it to be far more vehement and more varied than this;

for no one knows so many forms of theft and deceit as that foul one;

by this indeed he has acquired the greater part of his power; nor can anyone hold so implacable an enmity against his bitterest foes as the evil one holds against human nature.

And if one should examine also the eagerness with which he fights, to compare men here is even laughable;

but if one should pick out the most irascible and savage of the beasts and wish to set them against his madness, he will find them most gentle and most tame by the comparison—so great a fury does this one breathe, assailing our souls.

And the time of the battle here is short, and even in that short time the respites are many;

for the coming of night, and the weariness of slaughter, and the time for food, and many other things naturally give the soldier rest, so that he may put off his full armor and breathe a little and refresh himself with food and drink, and recover his former strength by many other means.

But in the case of the evil one it is never possible to lay down one's arms, it is never possible to take

sleep—for the one who wishes to remain forever unwounded.

For one of two things must happen: either he is stripped of his armor and so falls and perishes, or he stands forever fully armed, watchful and awake.

For that enemy stands forever with his whole army drawn up in battle line, watching for our moments of slackness, and he brings more zeal to our destruction than we ourselves bring to our own salvation.

And the fact that he is not seen by us and that he attacks suddenly—the very things that, above all, are the cause of countless evils to those who are not perpetually on the alert—shows this warfare to be far more difficult than the other.

Was it here, then, that you wished me to be a commander over the soldiers of Christ? But that would be to serve as a general for the devil;

for when the one whose duty it is to marshal and order the rest is himself the weakest and most inexperienced of all, and through his inexperience betrays those entrusted to him, he has commanded for the devil rather than for Christ.

But why do you groan? Why do you weep? My present situation is not worthy of lamentation, but of gladness and joy.

BASIL: "But my situation is not so," he said, "rather it is worthy of countless laments;

for only now have I scarcely been able to perceive into what evils you have led me.

For I came to you wishing to learn what defense I might ever make on your behalf to those who accuse you;

but you send me away, having put one anxiety in place of another.

For I no longer care what I shall answer those men on your behalf, but what I shall answer to God on behalf of myself and my own evils.

But I beg and implore you—if you have any care for my affairs, if there is any encouragement in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any tender mercies and compassions (for indeed you know that you above all others led me into this peril)—stretch out your hand, doing and saying whatever can set us upright again; do not endure to abandon us even for the briefest moment, but now more than before let us share our time together in common.

JOHN: "And what," I said, "can I contribute, and how can I be of help to you against so great a weight of affairs? But since this is pleasing to you, take heart, dear friend ("O beloved head");

for at any time when you are free to breathe from the cares yonder, I will be present, and I will encourage you, and I will leave nothing undone that lies within my power."

At these words he rose, weeping still more;

and I, throwing my arms around him and kissing his head, escorted him on his way, exhorting him to bear nobly what had befallen him.

"For I trust," I said, "in Christ who has called you and set you over His own sheep, that you will gain from this ministry such boldness that on that Day you will receive even us, who are in peril, into your eternal dwelling."